I didn't realize why until much later into adulthood, but I was one of those teenagers fascinated with rotten.com, and all the other weird sites out there during this time.

Looking back it was innocent exploration, but if I did what I did then today, I might get put on some watchlist.

And today I can barely watch an arm breaking contest without cringing.

Anyone else remember orsm, b0g? They rarely get mentioned among the greater sites, but that's where I spent most of my time before 4chan.

Rotten.com felt like one of the first moments where the internet stopped pretending to be curated civilization and instead exposed itself as raw human curiosity.

People often remember the gore, but what I remember more was the texture of the early web: sparse HTML, no engagement optimization, no algorithmic feed, no “creator economy.” You had to intentionally go looking for things. That changed the psychology completely.

Today’s internet is arguably more manipulative, even if it’s less graphic.

My recollection from this era is there was a common argument that provocation and boundary pushing were the way to ensure an uncensored internet. To me, it seems like that argument has been defeated by reality, but I've never seen much discussion of it. Maybe it's a last-year's-war now anyway.

I’m pretty sure the same chap ran ratemypoo.com and ratemyvomit.com. Maybe also hotornot.com.

Ahh … bastions of refined taste …

reading this makes me want to describe the world in a more recklessly imaginative way. what a joy.

"What mattered wasn’t so much the image itself but how it moved. Its value lay in its circulation: whom you could shock, how fast the chat room would combust, how far something would travel before it came back to you like a bad penny."

also, for what it's worth: i did not have access to the early internet. strict parents & computer only available in 'the computer room' where my dad's desk was, so he was always right there. as a consequence, i can't 'handle' movies with graphic sexual assault scenes or similar. i like that about myself tho.

Ah, Bonsaikitten. Happier times

rotten dot was weird. I did visit it a few times but the general perception was that the website was - as I would call it nowadays - trolling people. There was virtually no "historic lesson" or anything here. It's like Rick Rolling with a darker undertone.

I guess people like the novelty factor in general, but I quickly realised that I don't really have the slightest interest in cruelty or giving credibility to this by watching anything in this regard. Nowadays such troll videos are more commonly seen but I quickly skip to do something else than waste time watching any of these. Back in the 1990s, though, it was quite a bit hard to realise any of this, largely because of finding images and videos being harder back then. Even Rick Rolling wasn't quite a real "thing" in the 1990s; that became more of a thing in 2006, with our usual suspect, the 4chan troll army (though, Rick Rolling is very harmless compared to some content that was on rotten dot com).

The most haunting image I remember from that website was a photograph of a young boy who'd had his lower jaw cut off to punish his mother. It has stuck in my mind for nearly three decades. How could someone do that to a child? Horrifying.

This is so beautifully written.

The internet needs more of this.

Way to roll the nostalgia. AIM and rotten, seeing grotesque human sacrifice and torture at "13" was a unique time to be alive.

The whole article is poetry. Amazing.

“Rotten was a key you turned that locked a door behind you.”

I remember as a kid I went to a local internet café with a few friends to spend the evening playing Halo for one of their birthdays. I was sat at my computer waiting for one of the others to be set up so we could get going. To fill the time I absent-mindedly started browsing rotten.com, not realising (or perhaps just not caring) that the woman in charge of the café could monitor our browsing. After a few minutes I looked over to see her staring at me with a mix of confusion and disgust. I just sheepishly closed the window (no tabs back then). I'm lucky I wasn't kicked out much less put on some list!

I always thought it sucked that ratemypoo got taken down but rotten didn't

Similarly, pain olympics.

Mistakenly, i thought it was about Rotten Tomatoes, and i started thinking about how a movie like Michael ranked badly, the critics missed the whole point of watching a movie, to be entertained, sadly, here on HN, sometimes we miss the point too, if that involves some names

I recall back in the late 90s when someone showed me this site, back when no one had own computers. This one pic of some cars crash (i think) where some unlucky dudes face was basically caved in, while he was still alive. That image was burned to my mind, and it still haunts me to this day.

if you stared too long into rotten.com did not rotten.com also stare into you?

White background with blue links? Why do I remember Rotten as red on black?

Such a blast from the past. my cousin would often print out pictures from this site, and then stick them up in random places. we would hang around for adults to spot them and then laugh ourselves silly at their reactions.

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